"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." - Oscar Wilde

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The Use of the Death Penalty Is at Its Highest in 25 Years, a New Report Says

More people were executed worldwide in 2015 than at any point in the last 25 years, according to a new report by global human rights group Amnesty International released on Wednesday.

At least 1,634 people were put to death across 25 different countries, a 54% increase from the number of executions recorded the previous year. Even without the figure for China (Beijing treats its executions as a state secret), Amnesty said last year's total represented the highest it has recorded since 1989.

The report also showed that nearly 90% of all recorded use of the death penalty was accounted for by just 3 countries - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, with the latter reinstating capital punishment in December 2014 following a 7-year moratorium. The 3 nations fall between China, which Amnesty estimates executes thousands annually, and the U.S., which rounds out the top 5 with 28 people put to death in 2015.

Amnesty added that the report includes only the executions they were able to verify, with the actual number in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Somalia, and Egypt likely higher than their respective confirmed totals of 977, 158, 26, 25, and 22.

At the same time, the report observed that most of the world is renouncing the death penalty. Madagascar, Fiji, the Republic of Congo and Suriname abolished the death penalty for all crimes last year, bringing the total number of countries that have done so to 102. As of Dec. 31, 2015, Amnesty said, the number of countries that have abolished the death penalty "in law or practice" stood at 140.

"Thankfully, countries that execute belong to a small and increasingly isolated minority," Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General, said in a statement. "The majority of states have turned their back on the death penalty."

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About DPN

I oppose the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner.
The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, a cruel punishment that is incompatible with human dignity.
To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values.
The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.
The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect.
It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class.
It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation.
It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner.
It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it.
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